Jason Wade, the Southampton Rangers president, says his club “sacrificed” their Western Counties title for Bermuda’s ICC T20 World Cup Americas Qualifer cause.

The champions forfeited their Western Counties final with Warwick Workmen’s Club at PHC Field on Saturday after having several requests for the match to be rescheduled rejected by the Western Counties Cricket Association.

Wade said his club took the stance as five of their players are actively involved with the national squad in the regional qualifiers.

“We are not going to ask our players play Western Counties before representing our country,” Wade said.

“The club’s stance is simple; we want all of the best players playing for the national squad so we are not going to ask them to choose or decide. We forfeited the match when they wouldn’t change the date.

“We notified them three weeks ago and they said they weren’t willing to change the date of the game so we said, ‘All right’, well the national squad comes first and that we will forfeit the Western Counties and support our national team.

“Supporting the national team comes before Western Counties and all other cricket on the island, so we fully support our players that are playing in the national squad.

“If that means we have to sacrifice the Western Counties trophy this year than we are willing to do that.”

The Rangers players on national duty are club coach Janeiro Tucker, who is the Bermuda assistant coach, Dion Stovell, the Bermuda and Rangers captain, who is out with concussion, Malachi Jones, as well as Allan Douglas Jr and Derrick Brangman, who play as guest players in the Western Counties.

“The [WCCA] said the game is going on no matter what,” Wade said.

“We felt that was unreasonable because the Bermuda national team is playing that day and even if we didn’t have our players playing for the national squad we wanted the fans to go out and support the national squad. That was the stance of the club and that was that stance of our coach Janeiro Tucker.

“We were very disappointed in the Western Counties for taking this hard line stance when our national team is doing so well right now.”

Wade said his club also had a request to have names added to their team list enabling them to field a team in the final round rejected by the WCCA.

“They refused to allow us to add names to the list because in the Western Counties you have to submit the names of potential players at the beginning of competition.”

Sherwin Richardson, the WCCA president, could not be reached for comment.

Wade: Rangers made sacrifice’ for Bermuda

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